STOP THE WAR ON FAT!

I can get myself pretty worked up about the government’s attitude to the so called ‘Obesity Crisis” as you know from previous posts. And I like to think that I make a good case! I really do believe that they are missing the point by putting the focus on weight loss. Heavens! Even the tabloids were reporting that which we have known for years this week - that it’s healthier to be consistently overweight that to yo-yo up and down.

And whatever stand the government takes, whatever pointless propaganda it doles out, the power to make real changes lies squarely in our hands. We are the ones who need to stop waging a war against FAT! Us, those of us who are consumed daily with the desire to lose weight. First and foremost, we are the ones who beat ourselves up for not being thin enough, for being too fat. We are the ones who hate our bodies, who hold ourselves back from doing a whole host of things because we tell ourselves we are too big. We can complain and rant all we like about the obesity crisis (OK, maybe you don’t rant and complain, but I do!!!) and it may or may not make a difference but I can tell you what will make a difference, right now.

Here are my 7 steps to ending the WAR ON FAT! (Otherwise known as the OWN YOUR BODY principle)

1. DARE to feel good enough at the size we are right now
2. LIVE our lives without waiting until we are the ‘right size’
3. ACKNOWLEDGE that an ideal body size and/or shape is a social construct and bears no relation to what makes a person worthy, kind, intelligent or lovable.
4. CULTIVATE COMPASSION & CURIOSITY. Stop the self-hatred by acknowledging that the way we look may well reflect the way we eat, and that we eat the way we do for good reasons. The fact that we use food for comfort, as a slave, a way of zoning out, as a treat or whatever... doesn’t make us stupid, weak, bad or pathetic. We know that there’s work to be done to get to a balanced and healthy relationship with food and we’re doing the work. In the meantime, criticism and blame (whether from our own gremlins or from others!) don’t help. Compassion and curiosity do!
5. SPEAK UP about what it’s like to be fat in our society and what it’s really about. Let’s stop taking the blame and the judgments lying down. Let’s stop secretly agreeing with them that we are terrible people for being FAT and let’s stand up for ourselves!
6. DEMAND better quality, REAL food and do your own research so that you can create your own definition of a healthy diet. My take: many of the foods sold in the supermarket today are not food. They are over-processed pretend foods which are neither nourishing nor satisfying and many of them have the gall to call themselves diet foods and purport to help us lose weight or keep us healthy.
7. GET OUT THERE whatever your size. Move your body in ways that feel good and that you enjoy, because we are not designed to be sedentary and physical activity is good for us - about that there can be very little doubt! That doesn’t mean we have to exercise relentlessly. It can be gentle and fun and it doesn't have to be for hours at a time. Whatever our size or shape we can find a way to move that feels good - almost every one of us can walk around the block for 15 minutes.

ALL OF THIS ADDS UP TO:

BEING YOUR OWN GURU

I spent years looking for the magic wand that would make me slim. I desperately wanted to find a solution. I wanted someone to tell me what to do and I wanted someone else to blame went I couldn't do it. I didn't want to acknowledge that it was how I felt about being fat and the things I believed about myself because of my fat, that were really to blame!

I do want the government to change tack, I want them to see sense and offer real help and support, I want them to acknowledge that FAT is not the problem... and today I know that the only way to change anything is to be the change myself (I’m sure that’s from a quote I read somewhere!). I know that the only way to change the way people view fat in our society is to be honest with myself about my own prejudices and judgements about FAT, to own those judgements and then be willing to challenge them and change them.

It’s daring and risky to say out loud that I am OK with just the way I am right now, whatever my size, the way I look today.

We don’t have to LOVE our fat, we don't have to tell ourselves we are beautiful as we are (though there's no reason not to!), to believe that we are as good, as worthy and as lovable as the slim person sitting next to us. We don’t have to ACCEPT the FAT. Beyond Chocolate is not a FAT & HAPPY camp, that is missing the point. What we are inviting you to do is OWN your body now, the one you have, treat it with kindness and respect and be willing to accept that having FAT is not a sin, it doesn’t say anything more about you other than the fact that like almost everyone else in the world you are not perfect, and that eating is sometimes your way of coping with the challenges you face on a daily basis. Having FAT is not inherently unhealthy, it is not universally ugly and it is not and doesn't have to be BAD. When you find ways of managing the strains and stresses of life without food, your body may well get smaller but you don't have to wait for that to feel good about yourself!

Let’s not keep quiet. We don’t have to do this by ourselves, we have nothing to be ashamed of! Let’s talk to our friends, family and colleagues and stop colluding with the government and the media with our silence. Forward a link to this blog to one person you know today or LIKE it on your Facebook page. That’s how change begins. We stop fighting ourselves, that's how we stop the war!

Gretel's weekly rant - have we become a fattist society?

Gretel Hallet is a Chocolate Fairy and writes a lot on this blog. Her next workshop is in Norwich on 9th April  If you live in the area and want to find out more about Beyond Chocolate, Gretel would love to hear from you!  Meet Gretel.


Have you heard of Marsha Coupe?  She’s a 53 year old American who lives in Kent and works in London.  Oh, and she happens to weigh in at 22 stone.  I hadn’t heard of her before I spotted an article on my internet homepage with the intriguing title, ‘The Tyranny of Thin People’ by Ian Dunt.  Anything to do with weight, shape or size interests me as a Beyond Chocolater and a Chocolate Fairy, so I looked the article up.

To my horror, I discovered that in 2009 Marsha Coupe was attacked on a train by another woman because of her weight.  She was hit so hard in the face that she thought she might lose her eye.  Since then, Marsha has joined other women to lobby for London to be less ‘fattist’; just as there have been public campaigns to make people more aware of racism, homophobia and other hate crimes.

The woman who attacked Marsha Coupe wasn’t caught, but is her attitude typical of how we think about people who have fat?  I would hope not, but would suspect it is. 

The title of the article by Ian Dunt, by the way, was a little misleading, but it did mention our society’s obsession with thinness and how, as a society in general, we stigmatise fat.  I think I may have said this before, but fat has become the new whipping boy for the NHS.  Not that long ago we were all told that if we wanted to be healthier, or if we wanted treatment, we would have to give up smoking.  Now we are being told to lose weight.

Fat is being blamed for all manner of ills in the country.  Lost working days, increased pressure on the NHS, even the reduction in the allowed weight of luggage on planes to compensate for the increased weight of passengers. 

People with fat are dismissed as too lazy and too stupid to make corrections to their diet that would allow them to maintain a more ‘normal’ weight.  The diet industry is blossoming in this culture of fattism, and yet, as a nation we are bombarded with statistics that tell us that 30% of adults are ‘obese’. 

I often wonder where these statistics are gathered from.  I have been in places in England where I am the largest person weight-wise as far as I can see.  In other places I feel positively under-nourished.  But isn’t what part of what diversity means?  That not everyone is the same?  There always have been some people who have more fat than others.  Everyone knows someone who eats for England and doesn’t gain a pound and someone else who eats moderately and has fat.  People are individuals, for goodness’ sake!

Apparently in San Francisco it’s actually illegal to discriminate against someone because of their size – in England an attack like the one Marsha suffered should be regarded as a Hate Crime, the same as if she had been attacked for being black, or gay for example.

Another article prompted by Marsha’s story in the BBC magazine cites Susie Orbach as saying in response to this story, ‘the assumption is that overweight people have lost their self-control. That frightens society because there is so much emphasis on being slim’, and I think she has a point.  We are a society obsessed with celebrity, youth, beauty, slimness and many people aspire to these ideals.  Anyone who doesn’t fit the ideal is therefore a target. 

Finger wagging messages from Government about ‘tackling obesity levels’ aren’t helping either, turning those with fat into society’s new pariahs. 

I don’t have a solution I’m afraid; I’m just putting this out there and would be interested to hear your views …